Hot on the heels of the release of the excellent TV-adaptation of Red Queen on Prime Video comes the second book in the Antonia Scott and Jon Gutiérrez series: Black Wolf by Juan Gómez-Jurado (translated by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia). The series plays on a fairly standard Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson format. Antonia…
The beat goes on, as does girl power. Dein Perry’s Tap Dogs blended live music with creative tap dancing the likes of which we hadn’t seen before and it was electrifying. That kicked off a quarter of a century ago. A few years earlier a British idea saw everyday objects such as rubbish bin lids, brooms, matchboxes…
Non-indigenous Australians have often had a rather fraught relationship with the landscape of this continent. On one hand, its “boundless plains” offered a sense of opportunity; a chance to control the environment. But the land is also sometimes perceived as a wild place that can never be controlled. This led to a pervading sense of…
British intelligence is under the microscope in Black Bag. George Woodhouse (Michael Fassbender) is an elite operative at Britain’s closely guarded National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). He can’t stand liars. He seeks them out an exposes them. That has included his own father. Now there appears to be a mole in the ranks of the…
What is art? That is one of the questions at the heart of Red. Another concerns pretension. American writer John Logan wrote Red about Russian-born painter Mark Rothko (25th September, 1903 – 25thFebruary, 1970), who migrated to the USA at the age of 10. The Broadway production won six Tony Awards in 2010, including Best Play. Rothko…
Hero or villain? Richard Jewell, the movie, answers that question about the chief suspect in the Centennial Park bombing in 1996. That incident killed two people and left more than 100 injured. On 27th July that year, during the Atlanta Olympics, security guard Jewell (Paul Walter Hauser) discovers a suspicious backpack hidden under a bench…
Avenue Q (music and lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marks, book by Jeff Whitney, based on the original concept of Robert Lopez and Jeff Marks) is back in Sydney, under the banner of a new production company: Luke Wesley and LCW, at the Enmore Theatre, for a very short stay. I recommend that you…
From the highly creative mind of Wes Anderson comes the story of a ruthless businessman and his estranged daughter. It is 1950. Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro) is an enigmatic industrialist and one of the richest men in Europe. He is also a global target for assassins. Now, he has barely survived yet another…
Ben Affleck isn’t exactly one of my favorite actors. Not that he’s such a terrible actor, but he’s such a smooth guy who manages to play in some outstanding movies every time. Movies that didn’t leave an everlasting impression on me anyway. In retrospect, it’s really a giant list I’ve seen him in, such as…
A man who lived the kind of life he wanted inspires the feel-good Hampstead. The setting for the film is breathtaking. Hampstead in London is famous for its beautiful and much-loved heath – a piece of quiet countryside in a vast metropolis. Living on the edge of the heath is American widow Emily Walters (Diane Keaton). Since her…
