My, couldn’t we do with more peace and love in the world now, arguably more than ever? That is why Songs from the Canyon (that is Laurel Canyon) carries even greater weight in 2025. The geographic reference is to a mountainous neighbourhood in the Hollywood Hills, an oasis of tranquillity and the home of counterculture…
Viggo Mortensen (The Two Faces of January) stars in a tale of morality and friendship set against an unforgiving mountainous landscape during the Algerian War. The year is 1954 and the war is just starting. Remote village schoolteacher Daru (Mortensen), an ex-French Army soldier, who lost his wife a decade earlier, is caught in the…
Stephen King writes scary horror movies and Pet Sematary, which came out in 1989, is one such example. I didn’t see the original, so I have no point of comparison. Nevertheless, judging this remake purely on its merits … it’s intense and creepy. Pet Sematary follows Dr Louis Creed (Jason Clarke), a doctor who relocates…
Passion, intellect, history and legacy explode on stage in the masterfully written, acted, directed and produced romantic, dramatic, thriller Berlin. Australian Tom (Lachlan Hamill) has just landed in the German capital, keen to get to know the real city, not the tourist offering. He’s directed to a small watering hole, where he meets and is…
Kedi is the Turkish word for cat, and cat lovers everywhere will relish this simple but charming documentary from Turkey about the stray cats that live on the streets of Istanbul. Cats have been a feature of the city for hundreds of years. The adorable feral felines are cared for by the various local people…
What a super professional, highly entertaining, up tempo show for the festive season from a boy band that has been doing just that – keeping crowds entertained – for more than 30 years! Not just here, of course, but in Las Vegas, where they have been headliners in residence for upwards of a decade. Human Nature,…
The idea for this Broadway musical emerged from an ugly truth. Inclusion is the theme. Comedy is the vehicle. The Prom has its Australian debut at a new home for musical theatre in Sydney’s west, Teatro at the Italian Forum. A high profile, Tony Award-winning actress, Dee Dee Allen (Caroline O’Connor) and leading man Barry…
A melancholic coming-of-age drama, there is much to enjoy from 20th Century Women. The film is set in Santa Barbara in the summer of 1979. Dorothea Fields (Annette Bening – The Kids Are All Right) is a determined single mother in her mid-50s, raising her adolescent son, Jamie (newcomer Lucas Jade Zumann), at a time of cultural…
Queen Victoria formed an attachment late in life that brought the royal household to the point of apoplexy. That true story is given poetic licence in Victoria & Abdul. In 1887, Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal) – a 24-year-old clerk – travelled from India to the UK to present a ceremonial medal as part of the…
The highly political German drama In Times of Fading Light concerns the end of an era and personal tragedies associated with it. It’s 1989, and the days of the GDR are numbered. The structures of East Germany are giving in to the pressures of the West. But in the living room of the Powileits, time…
