Birdland is a British play written in 2014 by Simon Stephens. He generally writes from a ‘working class’ perspective (the provincial English city of Stockport is the usual location) and focuses on the struggles of particular ordinary individuals dealing with the social and materialistic difficulties that the ‘progress’ of the world throws at them. Mr…
Confession time…. I hate interactive/immersive theatre and I’m not much of a zombie fan. Yet I didn’t hate Directors of the Extraordinary’s Containment. This zombie adventure game sees the Brisbane Powerhouse transformed into a paramilitary-protected private research facility. Scientists have been weaponising a contagion that zombifies humans… until there was a leak in the lab….
As a critic, I learned long ago to lower my expectations. When you expect greatness, that is when you get burnt. The same goes about expecting a poop emoji. If you go into a record thinking it is going to suck…most likely it will. That is why music is subjective. I say all of that…
The Australian premiere of actor Andy Serkis’ directorial debut, Breathe will open the 2017 Cunard British Film Festival. Coming straight from opening the 61st BFI London Film Festival, the film stars Andrew Garfield (Hacksaw Ridge) and Claire Foy (The Crown), in the inspiring true story of a couple who refuse to give up in the face…
Sally Robbins and Steven Bradbury featured in two of the most notorious moments in Australian Olympic history. Robbins is known as “Lay Down Sally” because she gave up and lay back in her boat 250 metres from the finishing line during the women’s eights’ final at the Athens Summer Games in 2004. She was reviled for…
“You call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye” – Glenn Frey & Don Henley. Those lyrics from the Eagles song “The Last Resort” floated across my consciousness during a bravura sequence in this show where Chris Isaacs’s character describes the sights of an unexpected road detour in Bali. I won’t spoil the impact by providing further…
Greg McLean’s (Wolf Creek) latest film, Jungle, is based on the international best-selling memoir by Yossi Ghinsberg. This is a true story of survival against all odds. The year is 1981. Twenty-two year-old Ghinsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) has finished his mandatory Israeli military service. He’s working odd jobs and selling his worldly possessions to fund the adventure…
Finland’s official entry for the Foreign Language Oscar in 2018, Tom of Finland is a handsome production. This is a biopic of artist Touko Laaksonen. Laaksonen’s erotic drawings (under the pseudonym Tom of Finland) had a huge influence on gay identity and became a symbol of gay pride in the sexually liberated 70s and 80s….
A wintry wonderland hides dark secrets in the atmospheric thriller The Snowman, which has undertones of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In the frigid landscape, a sociopath who calls himself “The Snowman Killer” has targeted the one person he wants to appreciate his methodical, unthinkable “skills”. That person is Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender), lead investigator…
Geostorm has to be one of the most ridiculous disaster movies in a pantheon of clunkers in the genre. Even the special effects are severely underwhelming. After an unprecedented series of natural disasters threatened the planet, the world’s leaders came together to create an intricate network of satellites to control the global climate and keep…
