One of the most anticipated films of last year was Rogue One, the latest stand alone film in the Star Wars franchise. While it doesn’t quite live up to the hype it is still a solid film that delivers plenty of action that won’t disappoint the die-hard fans of the series. This “stand alone” Star…
The long-awaited 60th Anniversary production of Lerner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady finally reached Brisbane last week, and word in the foyers is that sold-out audiences are not disappointed. A loving recreation of the original production, directed by none other than the first Fair Lady on Broadway, Dame Julie Andrews, the performances, music, costumes and…
I knew very little of the Shakers before I read The Visionist … and if you’d asked what I knew, I would have said furniture. Yes, the Shakers are well known for their simple, practical but beautifully made furniture, but less is known about the religious movement itself. Reading The Visionist provided me with some insight into the movement,…
Cults, brainwashing and exploitation seem to go hand-in-glove. So it is that a young woman, Lisa – played convincingly by Hayley Worsley – a tried and true member of a sect with Eastern leanings, practising spiritualism and free love, finds herself in the hands of a deprogrammer, Mel (Tim Ferris) in Heretics. Lisa agrees to…
I walked out of A Plastic Ocean feeling guilty … guilty that I hadn’t given due consideration to a dramatic and escalating global problem. It is one that is choking the planet and causing death and destruction to creatures and bird life in and living off the seaways … and is carcinogenic to humans. I…
Consensual is a play by British writer, Evan Placey. Mr Placey has written most of his plays with young audiences in mind. Consensual was commissioned by the National Youth Theatre Rep Company. It deals with sex and the classroom. It, like the 2006 film with Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal, deals…
After a somewhat bizarre and hardly convincing opening, set in the dark past, we get the back-story of how five troubled teens from the small US town in California became Power Rangers. Although hardly ground breaking, that component was quite involving as, arguably, were the moments they respectively found out they had super powers. Beyond…
The kid who fell to Earth? In 2018 a small group of astronauts head off to live on Mars in an experimental colony known as East Texas. This space mission is the brainchild of Nathaniel Shepherd (Gary Oldman), a billionaire entrepreneur clearly modelled on Richard Branson, who is the CEO of Genesis Space Technologies. But…
What is the perfect size of a family? Three, four or more? That is concept explored in The Boss Baby, a colourful, funny and often endearing animated feature from DreamWorks, the studio that brought us Shrek, Kung Fu Panda and Madagascar. It has been inspired by the best-selling picture book by Marla Frazee. The story…
Disney has turned the classic animated feature Beauty and the Beast into a memorable live action adaptation, adding three new songs written by Alan Menken and Tim Rice in the process. Emma Watson is a fine choice as The Beauty, while Dan Stevens (TV’s Downton Abbey) is the fully digital character The Beast, created through…
