Groundhog Day gets a killer twist in Happy Death Day. In this clever teen horror film pays tribute to the slasher films of the 80s, a college student is brutally murdered, but gets to relive that day repeatedly until she can uncover the identity of her killer. Tree Gelman (played by Jessica Rothe) is a…
If I was asked to name a stand-out guitarist on the indie scene today I would absolutely and confidently say Mdou Moctar. This name for sure would get blank stares from many and I would follow up my answer with something like “C’mon, you don’t know the Tuareg guitarist and songwriter Mdou Moctar? He successfully…
Come from Away opened in Brisbane this week to rapturous standing ovations. This unique production tells the true stories of the people of Gander, Newfoundland (CA) and some of the passengers of the 38 planes that were diverted there during the day of September 11, 2001. As the small town’s population more than doubled with…
Big Brother is watching your every move and is judging you … harshly – very harshly indeed. In the case of Int, Big Brother is a “she” and she appears to have a firm grip on you; at least initially. That is what I took away from this 50-minute, one woman performance art piece – a polished…
One of the most creative and engaging plays I have had the good fortune to see, the moment it finished I wanted to see it again. What better recommendation is there? Put succinctly, North by Northwest is a beauty. So was the Alfred Hitchcock-directed movie, mind you, so the issue became how best to translate…
After the arrest of the Golden State Killer/East Area Rapist in 2018, investigator and scientist Paul Holes retired from the Contra Costa County police force. He has hardly had an idle day since. The DNA of Murder is a ten part series of individual cold case investigations, following Paul Holes and an array of his…
The Hitman’s Bodyguard (2017) was an over-the-top action comedy. Now comes more of the same in Patrick Hughes’ standalone follow-up, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard. The film opens with Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) accepting the Bodyguard of the Year Award, except … actually, he hasn’t won the prestigious gong. He only dreams of winning it, until…
It’s a bit daunting knowing that in order to try a new-to-you series author (that everyone else raves about), a reader faces ploughing through quite a long back catalogue. It was good news to discover that the award-winning author Ann Cleeves has created a fresh protagonist for this brand new British crime series. Crime and…
The speculative fiction genre got a bit of a kick in the teeth back in 2000 with the release of China Miéville’s Perdito Street Station and Jeff Vandemeer’s City of Saints and Sinners. With these came the advent of what has become known as ‘New Weird’. One source in 2023, defined New Weird novels as…
Sarah Perry returns to the locale of her hit novel (and TV series) The Essex Serpent to deliver another deep, dazzling book. Enlightenment takes place over three time periods and concerns itself with a historical mystery so that it becomes, like the comets that come into the narrative, an elliptical tale. While linear on the…
