History shown through the gentle, softening eyes of love – that’s what to expect with Anita Heiss’s latest read, Barbed Wire and Cherry Blossoms. Here’s the blurb: Over 1000 Japanese soldiers break out of the No.12 Prisoner of War compound on the fringes of Cowra. In the carnage, hundreds are killed, many are recaptured, and…
Sydney’s favourite four part harmony folk powerhouse All Our Exes Live In Texas have announced plans for a massive national tour this October after an appearance at the Lorne Festival in Victoria. All Our Exes Live In Texas have been putting the finishing touches on their upcoming debut album When We Fall so are promising…
There was merriment aplenty at the Alex Theatre on the opening night of the Australian premiere of Around the World in 80 Days, the epic adventure adapted by Toby Hulse and based on the novel by Jules Verne. Directed by Terence O’Connell and starring Ian Stenlake, Pia Miranda and Grant Piro, the trio plays 39…
“If music be the food of love, play on”. These words by Shakespeare are perhaps some of his most iconic in a long list of perfect and beautiful phrases. They have lasted across time, and in this, the 400th year since Shakespeare’s death it is only fitting that these words be spoken again in honour…
I am really sorry to have to say that I have just seen another Australian movie which is absolutely ghastly, in the form of Red Billabong. Nick Marshall (Dan Ewing from Home and Away) and his estranged brother Tristan (Tim Pocock) are drawn into a world of secrets and lies when their grandfather’s enormous outback…
I have not watched the British TV series The Office, so was not sure what to expect from this belated spin off feature length film. There have been many attempts to extend a 30 minute sitcom to feature length, such as the recent belated Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, which was unfortunately laboured, unfunny, past its…
You could call A Hologram for the King a coming-of-age story for a man or a midlife crisis tale. It’s Tom Hanks in less-than-populist filmmaking mode. The film features an unconventional narrative based on a culture clash. In recession-ravaged 2010, American businessman Alan Clay (Hanks), broke, depressed and freshly divorced, arrives in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia…
Despite the success of Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and Mel Gibson’s visceral The Passion of the Christ, the lavish big budget Biblical epic and sword-and-sandals drama has gone the way of the once popular Western. They have become a moribund genre that holds little appeal or relevance for today’s movie going audiences raised on a diet…
Based upon writer/director Gary Ross’ original screenplay, Free State of Jones tells the extraordinary story of a little known episode in American history. It concerns Newt Knight, a fearless Mississippi farmer, who led an unlikely band of poor white farmers and runaway slaves in an historic armed rebellion against the Confederacy at the height of…
There is a dark heart to American playwright Samantha Cooper’s world premiere work, Dawn, being staged at The Owl and Cat Theatre. It starts out with Laura’s parents wanting to have a family dinner with her, but things quickly turn sour … and it is soon clear why. Laura has told her mother, Jo, that her…
