Being a teenager … trying to make your way in the world can be challenging and scary. So it is for this group of seven Year 12 students at a high achieving Stockport (a town near Manchester, where playwright Simon Stephens grew up) grammar school, who are about to sit their end of year exams. A…
What to do when you’re a writer of best-sellers and you suffer from writer’s block? Yep, you start drinking till you drop. As a result it gets even more difficult to come up with something to write about. And what if you’re witnessing how an unknown young guy grabs an aggressive trucker by the scruff…
The latest songbook musical to revisit Australia is Jersey Boys, featuring the hits of Frankie Valli, Tommy DeVito, Bob Gaudio and Nicky Massi, more commonly known as Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons (among other early pseudonyms). The show is a biopic-style story punctuated by chart-toppers that made these boys from Jersey household names –…
I wish I could say great things about the sequel to the bump and grind we got in 2012 with Magic Mike. Three years after Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) bowed out of the male stripper life at the top of his game, “Magic Mike” finds the remaining Kings of Tampa, likewise, ready to throw in…
Looking for a love story with a difference? I found that in Alex Brunkhorst’s novel, The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine. It’s described as a modern-day Gatsby with hints of Daphne Du Maurier. I wouldn’t go so far as the Du Maurier – it didn’t have that gothic gloom underpinning the mystery – but it…
The three lead actors in Florence Foster Jenkins are picture perfect in their respective roles making this a far superior offering to the recently released Marguerite, which covered the same territory. This is an endearing and decidedly quirky comedy and period piece from acclaimed director Stephen Frears (Philomena, The Queen) starring Meryl Streep as Florence…
From the highly creative mind of Wes Anderson comes the story of a ruthless businessman and his estranged daughter. It is 1950. Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (Benicio del Toro) is an enigmatic industrialist and one of the richest men in Europe. He is also a global target for assassins. Now, he has barely survived yet another…
“We had such a great time on the first film that I was just excited to be involved again,” enthuses the very busy Australian actor Xavier Samuel about working on his latest film the low brow comedy, A Few Less Men, which is the sequel to 2011’s comedy A Few Best Men. The last time…
Well, that was a year! With everything that went on in 2020, movies proved both a comfort and a hope for better times. The big story of the year was the rise of streaming as a genuine alternative to (and in some cases, a replacement for) traditional cinemas. Those changes played out elsewhere, and we…
The Eight Mountains presents a beautifully shot and languidly paced story exploring the friendship between Bruno and Pietro over the course of four decades. “I didn’t expect to find a friend like Bruno in my life. Nor that friendship was a place where you put down roots” says the adult Pietro in the opening moments…
