The Dapto Chaser is a new Australian play by Mary Rachel Brown. It was commissioned by Illawarra’s Merrigong Theatre Company, in 2011. Dapto, a suburb of Wollongong, has a ‘famous’ greyhound race track. The play concerns a family, the Sinclairs, and their greyhound connections, ambitions and dreams. Horse racing is known as the Sports of…
Following its premiere as the closing night attraction at the 2017 British Film Festival, the formulaic rom-com Finding Your Feet gets a theatrical release. With its story of elderly Brits enjoying life and facing mortality, this endearing but flawed film will appeal to the same demographic that embraced films like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel….
Movies based on video games are pretty common – Angry Birds, Sonic the Hedgehog and Pokemon: Detective Pikachu to name a few. But movies based on board games seems counter-intuitive. I mean, the board doesn’t move, and much of the play is inside the players’ heads. So the arrival of Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among…
Three disaffected young men are at the centre of Green Day’s rock opera American Idiot. The story is expanded from their album of the same name, (released in 2004) and also features music from the 2009 album 21st Century Breakdown. Lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong and bassist Mike Dirnt formed Green Day in…
The most problematic of the Marvel superheroes is given a reboot in Spider-Man: Homecoming. When I say problematic, I mean because of his movie history more than anything else. In just the past 15 years, there have been no less than six movies featuring the teenage web-slinger. Sam Raimi’s 2002 – 07 trilogy starring Tobey…
Shadow City is Natalie Conyer’s follow up to her award winning debut Present Tense. Present Tense was set in South Africa and focussed on South African issues. In Shadow City, Conyer brings her Cape Town police detective Schalk Laurens to Sydney in search of a missing girl, allowing her to dig into more global concerns….
Kate Bush – what did I know about the English singer, songwriter, record producer and dancer before I attended An Evening Without Kate Bush? Very little, apart from appreciating her high-pitched tone, having listened repeatedly to her hits, such as Wuthering Heights, Babooshka and Running Up That Hill. And, of course, I had noted her…
Sharp Pins is the solo project of Kai Slater, best known as the frontman of the art-punk band Lifeguard. Slater started Sharp Pins to explore a new musical direction, different from Lifeguard’s intense, noisier style. Blending sounds and aesthetics from 1960s and 1970s rock with modern indie-pop sensibilities, this is an under-the-radar project with maximum…
I love streaming. It offers so many choices for you to enjoy at your leisure. I also hate streaming. I mean, it offers you just so many choices to enjoy at your leisure. The convenience is great, but the deluge of shows and movies means things – great things – can slip right by you….
The cover of Beat The Champ, the latest album by The Mountain Goats, has a picture of two wrestlers going at it in the ring. John Darnielle’s 15th studio album is indeed a theme album about the wonders (and gruesomeness) of professional wrestling. And no, not the WWF or WWE of your youth; this is…
