There’s one inevitability we all share. We will die. The thought-provoking Do Not Go Gentle, by the much-lauded Patricia Cornelius (My Sister Jill, Runt), juxtaposes two realities – one where the Antarctic explorers in Captain Robert Falcon’s Scott’s ill-fated expedition go through their adventurous ordeal, and the other where the residents of an aged care…
One of the most complex and sophisticated animated features I have seen, Zootopia pits a high achiever rabbit alongside its natural predator, a cool and wily fox. The studio has a long and storied legacy of talking animals – from Mickey Mouse’s debut short, Steamboat Willie to Bambi, Dumbo, The Jungle Book and The Lion…
Twenty-one-year-old Leo Joseph-Connell (Shiv Palekar) values his independence. He’s fallen out with his mother Jane and is on a cross-country bike trip. The family hasn’t heard from him in weeks and they are worried. Leo lands on the doorstep of his 91-year-old grandmother Vera Joseph’s (Nancye Hayes) apartment in Greenwich Village, dirty and smelly. He’s…
Cirque du Soleil’s Kooza is the most acrobatically dangerous show yet, with its homage to the traditions of circus, interpreted by the Cirque du Soleil artists and creators. The show combines acrobatics with the art of clowning. An international cast of 50 acrobats, musicians, magicians, singers, actors and artists present a journey of heart stopping…
Take a base of screwball comedy, add a dash of French New Wave, stir in some 1970s Woody Allen sensibility and top with a dollop of Clueless – now if you can wrap your head around all that, you’ve got a pretty good idea of what to expect from Mistress America. This is director Noah…
This grand musical comedy is based upon the 1952 film version of Singin’ in the Rain starring Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds. Set in the late 1920s, it is a light hearted take on a period of transition in Hollywood, with the leads playing performers caught up in the move from silent films…
“It’s a little bit harder as a woman to get a film financed in this country as a director,” says filmmaker Kim Farrant who has just made her feature film debut with the taut new Australian psychological drama Strangerland. In the film Farrant explores how people cope with crises. In this case, the Parker family…
If The Room isn’t the worst commercially released movie of all time, I don’t know what is. It’s badly acted and directed, and its script doesn’t make any sense. Against all expectations though, it has developed a cult following, with midnight screenings around the world selling out. Made for a reported US$6 million (of writer, director,…
By the end I was bawling like a baby. CATS, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical as a Tom Hooper-directed and co-written (with Lee Hall) film, is a triumph of theatrics – costuming, make-up, choreography, colour and emotion. In the original 1980s stage musical, CATS takes place on the night of the annual Jellicle Ball, when…
Inga Vesper’s debut crime novel The Long, Long Afternoon takes readers into the Stepford world of 1950s Los Angeles and then blows it up from the inside. When the book opens, seemingly devoted housewife Joyce Hayney has disappeared. The investigation into that disappearance will reveal cracks in the façade of her marriage and the community…
