Almost two years ago now, director Olivier Assayas and star Kristen Stewart (with more than a little help from Juliette Binoche) gave us one of the most intriguing and beautiful films of 2015 in The Clouds of Sils Maria. Now the pair have re-teamed for Personal Shopper – which just happens to be one of…
Nophek Gloss is a space opera debut and first in a new series from Essa Hansen. The name of the book comes from Gloss, the most valuable substance in the multiverse which is harvested from the brain of a vicious mammalian creature called nophek. This is not the only strangeness in a book that is…
I entered the theatre really wanting to like the new Australian comedy The Last Parma Night, but I am afraid I didn’t even get close to doing so. In fact, I struggled greatly with it. It suffered from a slow start and, in my eyes, it never gained a foothold. The storyline concerns a bloke,…
When I saw the initial production of this show back in 2013 I remarked: “In the US The Nutcracker is an annual Christmas holiday spectacle and after his years in America Queensland Ballet’s Artistic Director Li Cunxing is determined to make it a similar Brisbane institution. Will Brisbane fill a theatre every year for the…
True crime and true crime podcasts are having a moment, not only in the real world but also in fiction. However, in fiction, writers can start to get behind the obsession with true crime, the ethics of these investigations and the consequences, both good and bad, of reopening old cases. Rebecca Makkai’s new novel I…
The “wrong man” trope has a long cinematic history. It provided the basis for at least three Alfred Hitchcock classics – The 39 Steps, North by Northwest and The Man Who Knew Too Much. But it probably found its most intriguing form in the paranoid thrillers of the 1970s, like The Conversation. Now director Ferdinando…
She’s rude, belligerent and overbearing, and proud of it. She’s crippled and ailing, drinks like a fish and has been a war photographer. She’s Ruth (Charlotte Rampling), a straight-talking English woman, and the central character in Matthew Saville’s film Juniper. It’s 1992. Ruth is visiting her son Robert (Martin Csokas) and grandson Sam (George Ferrier)…
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…
Set between Australia and the Philippines, the tragicomedy MR BIG aka Tatay, A Transwoman and That Tiring Tune! deals with pain and regret. Diana (Dax Carnay-Hanrahan) is a trans Filipina woman who now lives in Australia and is engaged to be married to the love of her life, Jerry (Aiden Gale Miranda). At the same…
During the late 90s and early 2000s, the pioneering Blackberry – the phone with a keyboard – dominated the tech market. At its peak, the iconic device made up 45% of the cellphone market and had some 85 million subscribers. But then egos, hubris, corporate greed, shady business deals and rival tech companies and their…
