Safely ensconced here in the Southern Hemisphere, few Australians have first-hand experience of America’s sometimes-toxic racial politics. In general, we experience it from afar, via either the news or some other media (like the recent film Get Out). Our national experience, while arguably no better than the USA’s, is however markedly different. So the Netflix…
In M. Night Shyamalan’s intriguing psychological thriller, Knock at the Cabin, Kristen Cui plays eight-year-old Wen – a bright young girl who collects grasshoppers so she can study them. She’s special because she was adopted by her two dads – Andrew (Ben Aldridge) and Eric (Jonathan Groff) – when she was only a baby. Now…
Melbourne noir-country duo Broads have announced plans to hit the road this April, May and June to celebrate their brand new album Vacancy. Broads are crooners Kelly Day and Jane Hendry. Their songs weave through a cast of characters riddled with self-delusion, longing, regret and paranoia. Vacancy, which was released at the end of February,…
At the start of The Neon Demon, 16-year-old aspiring model Jesse (Elle Fanning) moves to Los Angeles and finds herself staying at a sleazy motel overseen by an equally sleazy, repulsive and ill- mannered manager (Keanu Reeves). A young man has taken a few photos of Jesse, which she presents to a prestigious modeling agency…
Do you have a list of books you were hoping to have read this year? Are you despairing that you’ll never get to cross those titles off? I hear you. The Best Australian Stories 2017 may help to fill your literary cup. Maxine Beneba Clarke edited this collection of Australian short stories. Herself an award-winning…
What happens if a woman who’s been married for 30 years suddenly confronts her man with the thought she could be into women? That happens not once but twice to two different 50-something couples in Thomas Ian Doyle’s latest incendiary work, Pins and Needles. Clearly the spark in these relationships when they formed is no…
Wolf Hall dates from a few years ago (2015) but this quality limited series is streaming now on Stan, and it’s well worth catching up with. The series comes from the BBC (of course) and is based on Hilary Mantel’s novel of the same name. Wolf Hall – the book – was the first in…
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…
In 2019, Ajay Chowdhury won the inaugural Harvill Secker/Bloody Scotland award aimed at discovering new crime writers from underrepresented communities. The Waiter, which appears at first to be two crime novels for the price of one, is Chowdhury’s debut crime novel (he had previously published a children’s book). And along the way it tips its…
Gritty and unrelenting, Wind River marks the directorial debut of Taylor Sheridan. He’s the screenwriter behind Sicario and Hell or High Water; and here he weaves a tense thriller. Wind River is Sheridan’s conclusion to a thematic trilogy (with those earlier films) exploring the modern American frontier. The film explores what Sheridan calls “perhaps the most tangible remnant…
